Lili Bermant is an 83-year-old widow from Antwerp, Belgium, who most recently lived in Amherst, Massachusetts. This was her second interview with the Wexler Oral History Project. In the first interview, Lili talked mostly about her early years: growing up in Belgium and her escape to the United States via France, Spain, and Cuba.
This second interview started with her move to the United States in December 1945. Lili and her parents moved into an auntâs vacant apartment in New York City, while Liliâs sister moved into another family memberâs apartment. Lili had just finished high school in Cuba so she applied to college in January of 1946. She ended up at Brooklyn College, which she both loved and found very difficult to adjust to. She came from a very small high school in Cuba to a large college in New York; she had a British accent, that many other students mistook for a pretentious attitude; she called herself âsocially inept,â lacking experience with a diverse group of students; and she often got so nervous when she was called on in class that she forgot her English.
Liliâs sister married shortly after the family arrived in New York. Lili remembers that dating was very difficult with her parents around always asking questions, including if the boy she was seeing was Jewish. Specifically, one young man invited Lili to go horseback riding in Cortland Park, and when Lili told her parents she didnât think he was Jewish, it caused a big argument.
With some girlfriends, Lili visited a resort in Connecticut and hit it off with the waiter. They started dating and Lili was concerned because her parents did not want her dating Americans, so they kept the relationship a secret. But finally, when the waiter (Ozzie) graduated college as an engineer and Liliâs mother intimated that she was okay with him, the two decided to marry. The wedding was in 1950.
Lili majored in English in college and talked about her few odd jobs during and after she was in college: at a library, some translation work, etc. Post-college, Lili and her husband moved around New York state (to Poughkeepsie and Woodstock) and finally to Maryland in 1968, when her son was 14 and her daughter 10. Her son had some difficulty in school, but when he graduated, Lili, her husband, and her daughter moved back to Belgium. Lili characterized herself and her children as âhippiesâ at the time, in the late 1960s.
Although Lili and her sister had had a tenuous relationship, the two became closer when Lili moved to Brussels, where her sister already lived. Lili talks about those three years in Brussels, the result of her husbandâs relocation during his tenure at IBM, in a very fond way. The family traveled a lot, something Lili had not done when she was growing up in Antwerp. Furthermore, she had a job she very much liked as an English tutor in a private school. She picked up some hobbies, including writing and tennis.
One formative trip Lili took was a solo jaunt to Israel for eight days. She visited the north, a kibbutz, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, and Yad Vashem. She remembers Israel being in a lesser state of turmoil than today, even though there were many visible armed soldiers at the time.
The family returned to the Washington, D.C. area after three years, at which point Liliâs husband started doing some service work as part of his job at IBM. This is how both he and Lili got into mediation. Once Ozzie retired, he and Lili started their own company having to do with mediation and arbitration. At this point in the interview, Lili also mentioned that her husband died at the age of 72, very suddenly, of a brain aneurysm.
Lili talked about her professional life from the late 1960s onward; she pursued a masters degree in education (specifically reading) in both Belgium and Maryland. She then became involved in training companies. She said she regrets not going into social work because she thinks she would have liked it.
Lili talked about her sisterâs daughter, who made aliyah and then was involved in an international lawsuit; she abducted her son from his increasingly threatening and increasingly religious father.
Lili also spoke about her sisterâs burial in Israel because there was no room for her in Belgium. Lili went with her niece, and was amazed that the body made it there without their direct supervision. She said it was very nice and that they went back a year later for the memorial service; both ceremonies were lovely.
Lili was interested and involved in womenâs rights organizations. She remembers getting a subscription to Ms. Magazine when she left for Belgium in the late 1960s; she also joined a group called Women Overseas for Equality (WOE). Although she didnât care about the discussions of body hair or the extreme feminism, she was interested in the plight of wives of international workers. Ozzie was always very supportive of Liliâs involvement in feminist organizations.
Back in Maryland, Lili joined a group called Washington Women Outdoors. This was an activity group for women who wanted to do outdoorsy things together. Later in its life, it evolved into a mostly lesbian group, even though Lili did not identify that way. Lili seemed to understand the struggles of being gay in that time period and talked about how her friends dealt with that.
Lili talked about how she has been surrounded by strong women in her life, including her daughter and nieces. She thinks they are in a different position now than when Lili was their age. She still has advice for women: be financially independent; know who you are marrying; explore your options (especially career-wise); respect your children; and teach your children about the world.
![[help]](/images/question.gif "[help]")
)![[Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0]](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png "[Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0]")
![[item image]](http://ia600608.us.archive.org/17/items/LiliBermant10nov2010YiddishBookCenter/LiliInterview2.gif?cnt=0 "[item image]")
